T-626-VIEN and T-723-VIEN, Virtual Environments, Spring 2008

Basic Info

Description

This is a comprehensive course in both the theory and practice of Virtual Environments (VEs). Virtual Environments are simulations that engage the senses of users through real-time 3D graphics, audio and interaction to create an experience of presence within an artificial world. VEs are used in a variety of settings, including training, education, health, online collaboration, scientific visualization and entertainment. Their use is becoming more and more pervasive as hardware gets more capable of simulating reality in real-time (including graphics, physics and intelligent behavior). As part of the theoretical overview, the course will introduce the history of VEs, what kind of problems VEs have proven to be best at addressing, what are their shown limitations, what models of human-computer interaction apply to VEs and how these models are evolving and pushing the state-of-the-art in interactivity. The technical portion of the course will lead students through the construction and population of VEs in a very hands-on manner, covering topics such as world representation, real-time graphics and simulation issues, networked environments, avatars and interactive characters, event scripting and AI control, special real-time visual and aural effects and intuitive user interfaces.

Goals

On completion of the course students should:

On the theoretical side, acquire understanding of the benefits and limitations of VEs in a historical context, and be able to develop new VE based solutions that incorporate well structured interaction models.

On the technical side, learn to construct interactive VEs using a range of state-of-the-art technologies and tools.

Exam

The final exam contributes 30% towards your final grade in the course. Please find all the information about the exam on the Final Oral Exam page. It now includes the final exam schedule and location information.

Coursework Overview

During the semester, students should complete two programming assignments and a final programming project. These are all group projects. Students discuss final project ideas with instructor in week 5, present a proposal to the class in week 8, demonstrate final project in weeks 11 and 12, and turn in a final project report at the end. In addition, student participation in classes, online discussion and lab exercises counts towards the final grade. Everything that has to be turned in, should arrive no later than at 23:59 on the due date, or else incur 10% penalty for each additional day, including weekends and holidays.

Discussion Questions

After every theory lecture, the instructor will post a discussion question on an online forum and the students will be required to contribute to the discussion of that topic until the following lecture. The discussion takes place on an external forum page at the following address. Note that the students have to register on this forum to post their replies (simply go to the address below to register).

Books

There is no single textbook for the course. Reading and support materials will be handed out in class or posted on MySchool. These will mostly be in the form of research papers. The course is also to some extent inspired by the following books: